Home | Reviews | GUIpedia | Forum | Fun500
| Brandon | Computer EvolutionThe year is 1993, you have a computer, a 33Mhz 486 with 8MB RAM. You boot up Windows 3.1, browse the internet, read the news, look up the scores to last nights games, you google for help with homework, and you chat online, and write a paper in MS Word.
Now the year is 2009, you have a computer, a 3200Mhz Pentium 4 with 2048MB RAM.You boot up Windows Vista to browse the internet, read the news, look up the scores to last nights games, you google for help with homework, and you chat online, and write a paper in MS Word.
Notice anything? The Hardware has multiplied by hundreds, but the task remains the same, yet its still not instant, after 16 years? | 2009-02-18 | 4:53 PM |
| Todd | Re:Computer EvolutionGoogle wasn't out in 1993 but you mean to use a search engine. ;)
In 1993, I had a Zenith PC with a 3 MHz CPU (5 MHz in "turbo" mode) which couldn't even handle Windows except for the GUI GEOS (a fine example of an efficient OS).
Plus the reason these things aren't really instant is because the human response hasn't improved. People can't run faster. But when it would be possible to only render 3D animations on specialized computers in 1993, it's just a couple clicks away. | 2009-02-18 | 5:02 PM |
| Brandon | Re:Computer EvolutionCrap, I was looking up all the dates too :P I had it at 1997, but then realized AIM would have been brand new so I went back, anyways It a search engine like you said.
I should use Win3.1, I wonder if too new of hardware kills it? It would do everything and be fast fast fast. | 2009-02-18 | 5:05 PM |
| Todd | Re:Computer EvolutionI never really tried any hardware on it since almost nothing really worked. It was worse than Windows 95. | 2009-02-18 | 5:07 PM |
| Brandon | Re:Computer EvolutionI used it a lot on an old Compaq Net 1 I have, and on my IBM. I have 5 of the 6 original install disks (Vetusware for the 6th :P), and drivers for my IBM. | 2009-02-18 | 5:11 PM |
| Re:Computer Evolutionmy classmate has a win3.1 on a 1990 pc (i forget the stats), i tried it once and it took longer to load Word 6 than it does now to load Word 2007 on our fancy lil' Vistas. lol | 2009-02-18 | 6:17 PM |
| Brandon | Re:Computer EvolutionIt was probably a low 386. Win3.1 is instant at 200mhz. | 2009-02-18 | 6:37 PM |
| Todd | Re:Computer EvolutionGEOS was always my favorite GUI at the time. It had lots of cool tools but the downside was that it wasn't well-marketed and so almost nothing was made for it. | 2009-02-18 | 7:35 PM |
| Brandon | Re:Computer EvolutionIt must be pretty resource friendly, having a C64 version and all. | 2009-02-18 | 8:03 PM |
| Todd | Re:Computer EvolutionIt was written directly in Assembly which made it really fast and efficient. It fit on only a few floppy disks while Windows 3.1 takes up six. | 2009-02-18 | 8:40 PM |
| pharoah | Re:Computer EvolutionI have a commodore 64 version of GEOS in its original box. The software was first written for the c64, and although it didn't multi task it did pack some impressive graphical usability features into a 64k machine with a single 1541 disk drive. Unfortunately I can't really use mine because I have neither a joystick nor a mouse for the '64, but it's still cool to have.
The later versions of PCGEOS (Breadbox Ensemble and the like) look really impressive. Apparently the company is still around and selling it, but I can't imagine it is going well for them. Somewhere I read a story about the development of the system's GUI toolkit which was extremely powerful and provided a good layer of abstraction between the software and the user (IE you could change the interface to act exactly like an early mac).
There used to be an in-browser c64 emulator where you could try GEOS, but I can't find it anymore. | 2009-02-18 | 9:35 PM |
| Todd | Re:Computer EvolutionI still have the GeoWorks Ensemble box my Dad bought for my Zenith. ;) It's a picture of a family with a computer posing in the picture with GEOS running on the screen. ;) | 2009-02-18 | 10:24 PM |
| Re:Computer EvolutionAre you trying to say computers have not evolved? I'm going to disagree. I guess it depends on what you use your computer for. If its just for browsing text on web, typing, simple tasks,.. etc. then I suppose almost any comp will work.
For me personally: here are the things I do today that I couldn't do in 1993:
1. Store gigabytes of my music and movies (or download movies and music off the internet, who wants to pay for cds dvds? pirating's the way to go )
2. Watch hq movies on the computer
3. Encode, burn to dvd, different movies and stuff without waiting years
4. stuff like youtube, etc (flash, java, etc..)
the list goes on to other things like movie editing, image editing, but those dont really apply to me. Think about all the things today that rely on big powerful computers. | 2009-02-18 | 10:36 PM |
| rCX | Re:Computer EvolutionYeah I remember the days of using using MS-DOS on a 386 with 0.004GB (4000kb proper) of ram.
It never ceases to amaze me how Windows XP installed in 1GB while Vista installs in 10GB, although vista does not have 10 times as many features.:dry:
It will probably take 1TB to install Windows 10... | 2009-02-18 | 10:38 PM |
| Todd | Re:Computer EvolutionTrue dat. I mean ReactOS isn't even close to that! | 2009-02-18 | 10:55 PM |
| Re:Computer Evolutioni thought xp was like 8gb :huh: | 2009-02-18 | 11:05 PM |
| Todd | Re:Computer EvolutionIt probably would be with the hibernation file. | 2009-02-19 | 8:21 AM |
| Brandon | Re:Computer EvolutionXP needs 1.5GB, Ubuntu and other Linux distros cannot fit on a 2GB hard drive.
[quote]1. Store gigabytes of my music and movies (or download movies and music off the internet, who wants to pay for cds dvds? pirating's the way to go )
2. Watch hq movies on the computer
3. Encode, burn to dvd, different movies and stuff without waiting years
4. stuff like youtube, etc (flash, java, etc..)[/quote]
Um, I could store music in 1993, maybe not gigs, but still Music.
High Quality movies in 1993 could be played on a computer, But high quality then was low depth tv.
Burn to a dvd? Why, they weren't around, so it would be a useless feature.
So Flash/Java takes 3200Mhz, and everything else works at 33? They must be resource hungry monsters. | 2009-02-19 | 11:00 AM |
| Todd | Re:Computer EvolutionThe JVM is really inefficient. The problem that's still in Java to this day is the idea of resource usage over efficiency. The JVM is constantly managing memory for any Java program or applet running. | 2009-02-19 | 1:21 PM |
Other
2021 Brandon Cornell
